John proceeded through the ancient forest with his scythe in hand. Although he had not sensed any danger yet, the dense forest did not give him much time should something attack him.
'My essence cultivation is now almost at the peak of the Mist Creation Realm, and with the Golden Marrow Condensation Pill, I should be able to break through quickly. But with how fast the Undying Vitality Fruit raised my cultivation, I should stabilise my cultivation first before attempting a breakthrough. I also need more comprehensions on my essence Qi, as I can still feel a slight bottleneck.'
Unfortunately, John had not come up with a solution for his Immortal Asura Body cultivation yet. Beast blood essence was mostly useless in regards to raising his body dantian cultivation, and he did not have human blood essence to use either.
Also, it required human blood essence at least on his level of cultivation, so that was another hurdle.
'I need to come up with a solution. Maybe when I'm out of the pocket realm, I can go hunt some cultivation criminals or something. I need to give this more thought, as it's a serious hurdle for my body cultivation.'
John's greatest asset was his powerful body, and so having it fall behind his essence cultivation was a detriment to his overall strength. Also, he couldn't just request human blood essence from his clan, as human blood based cultivation techniques were considered taboo.
He continued through the forest, keeping his guard raised for any dangers while simultaneously searching for any opportunities.
Roar!
A loud roar boomed out in front of John, and he quickly noticed a massive beast in front of him, blocking his path. It looked like a giant gorilla, and its cultivation was at the late Mist Creation Realm.
John smiled as he stared directly at the beast. "Your blood essence will be very useful. Thank you for your sacrifice."
Che!
A sharp beam of scythe Qi flew out of his scythe, and John quickly dashed forward towards the beast. Loud booms echoed throughout the forest as John fought the beast for several minutes. The forest eventually quieted down, and John looked down on the beasts corpse with a smile on his face.
"I fought that battle with just essence Qi, since that can be replenished naturally over time. I was unsure of how I would stack up against this beast using only that, but it seems I was worried for nothing."
John had decided that unless completely necessary, he would only use his essence dantian for fighting. He was able to naturally replenish that over time by absorbing Qi from the surrounding air, and so he would not have an issue of running out of Qi in this realm.
This was his first battle against another late Mist Creation Realm opponent using only essence Qi, but the results had been better than he had hoped. His body was extremely powerful naturally, and helped out greatly even without using the Supreme Battle Art. That combined with his powerful essence dantian, allowed him to easily overpower this beast.
John harvested the beast's blood essence and threw both the blood and the corpse into his palace realm. Many giant vats of blood were filled to the brim inside the palace, allowing for an immediate source of blood essence should John need it.
"I wonder why all these beasts are either in the Mist Creation Realm or Qi Condensation Realm? The natural Qi density in this pocket realm is incredibly dense, and these beasts should be able to advance to higher realms, but I have seen none at all yet. Maybe they're being suppressed to the Qi Condensation Realm, since this is a trial world for juniors?"
He couldn't come up with a definite answer, so he decided to think no more of it. John continued on for several days through the forest, battling with many beasts along the way that were protecting their territory. His smile grew larger as his blood essence reserves were once again filling up, giving him much more confidence.
After several days, John found himself leaving the ancient forest. He was slightly disappointed that he had found no amazing opportunities inside.
"I suppose that not every place has treasures, or maybe I just didn't walk to the correct location in the forest. It was incredibly massive, and it's more likely that I just didn't get lucky."
John shrugged his shoulders as he walked out of the forest, but before long his eyes widened slightly in surprise.
Directly in front of John, a massive chasm was revealed to him. It stretched as far as the eye could see to each side, and was several miles wide. The walls of each side of the chasm was incredibly smooth, like polished marble. An incredibly sharp and profound sword aura emanated from the chasm, shocking John immensely.
"What is this chasm? This sharp sword aura emanating from the chasm indicates that it was made by a sword attack...but that should be impossible right? No one has this much power…"
John came to a conclusion on what made the chasm, but he was unable to comprehend how a sword attack could have caused such a massive scar in the earth.
"It seems the cultivation world is even more amazing than I initially thought," John mumbled to himself as he stared at the chasm in a daze. He eventually gathered his wits and carefully walked to the edge of the cliff, and peered into its depths below.
"What is that?" John muttered as he stared into the depths.
Hundreds of yards deep into the chasm, there was a massive whirlpool of energy that spanned as far as the eye could see. John tried to look into the whirlpool to see if anything was behind it, but was unable to. The whirlpool contained incredibly dense energy, and John's divine sense was not strong enough to reach it hundreds of yards below.
"I wonder what's down there? Maybe there's some amazing treasure, but I'm not about to throw my life away like that. I guess I need to turn back, as there's no way forward."
John was disappointed that this was the end of his journey in this direction. Turning back would waste time in search of more opportunities, but unfortunately it was the only choice. Just as John decided to turn back, he heard a slight sound behind him and quickly turned around. His expression became incredibly grave as he stared at a group of red robed boys walk out of the forest and directly towards him.